Russia charges journalist with ‘justifying terrorism’

MOSCOW: Russia has detained prominent journalist Nadezhda Kevorkova and charged her with “justifying terrorism” over posts on her Telegram account, her lawyer said Monday.
Kevorkova, 65, wrote for a number of outlets including Novaya Gazeta and Russia Today and specialized in coverage of the Middle East, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Nadezhda Kevorkova has been detained and will be taken to a temporary detention center today. The matter of pre-trial restrictions will be decided tomorrow,” lawyer Kaloy Akhilgov said.
The charges relate to two posts on her Telegram from 2018 and 2021, one a re-post from another journalist about the 2005 Islamist raid on Nalchik and the other about Afghanistan, he said.
The raid on Nalchik, a city in Russia’s North Caucasus, saw armed Islamist militants target government and security buildings in an attack that left dozens of people dead.
Her ex-husband Maxim Shevchenko, who presents a talk show on state television, rejected the charges against her.
“Nadezhda Kevorkova never justified terrorism and never justified the attack on Nalchik ... but as a journalist, she certainly wrote about torture during the investigation,” he said.
Russia has waged an unprecedented crackdown on freedom of the press since launching its full-scale offensive in Ukraine, silencing and detaining journalists at odds with the Kremlin.